


Your Light Made Us Stars

by TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt, Not A Fix-It, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Peter Parker Deserves Better, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker has PTSD, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, Tony Stark Feels, We love you 3000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 20:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20315710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG/pseuds/TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsG
Summary: Peter tries to be okay.





	Your Light Made Us Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I just have a lot of feelings about these guys.
> 
> Title from "Light Years" by Pearl Jam

Peter tries to be okay.

He tries _so hard_, for May and Ned, for MJ. 

It would probably be easier for all involved if he had big, showy panic attacks, if he screamed and cried at the injustice of it all. But he doesn’t, surprising nobody more than himself. Instead, he will sit there, after a sound or a smell triggers a memory, and he is back under the rubble, his chest being crushed beneath all that weight, or he is on Titan, feeling himself slip away into nothingness, and instead of freaking out, he freezes.

When he closes his eyes, he sees Tony’s face, sees the moment the spark went out in the man’s eyes. The phantom smell of charred flesh is constantly in his nose.

Peter learns, quickly, to be a silent crier.

When Sam Wilson calls him to tell him that Steve Rogers has died (“Peacefully, I think. In his sleep. He asked us to inform everyone before the media gets a hold of it.”), Peter locks himself in his room, puts on his mask and asks Karen to make it soundproof. Then he screams, for what feels like hours, until his voice is gone and his throat feels like he’s been gargling with gravel.

There are two funerals, a public one, for America’s greatest hero, and a private one. Peter only goes to that one, lets himself be hugged by the other Avengers (the ones who are still around, anyway), and the whole time the image of the arc reactor drifting away on the lake swims before his eyes, and all he can think is, _Everybody is leaving me_, and _If they can’t do it, how the fuck am I supposed to?_

He can’t leave the house without being reminded of it, constantly. Iron Man murals have popped up like daisies all across the city, New York’s most famous son immortalised on every surface.

Peter wants to tear it all down.

He lets May talk him into going on the trip to Europe, and he does get excited when he realises he will be able to spend time with MJ. Fury showing up in his hotel room does throw a wrench into his plans, true, but it all seems short-lived, with Mister Beck there and Fury seeming to take his protestations seriously for once. Peter is not at all surprised when it all goes to shit.

When Peter curls into a ball in the train, he thinks he’s surely going to die this time. _Serves you right_, some nasty little voice in his head says, _trying to save the world. You’re just a stupid kid with daddy issues_, and the worst part is that the voice is absolutely right.

Defeating Beck doesn’t make the terror go away, on the contrary, his nightmares only get worse, especially now that the whole world knows his face, until May can’t take it any more. Pepper Potts sits on their couch the next day, and Peter crumples like a badly built house of cards. He cries into her no doubt prohibitively expensive blazer as she holds him, and for the first time in months, he doesn’t feel alone. If there is somebody who will understand his pain, it’s probably Pepper.

He gapes at her like a fish when she asks him if he wants to babysit Morgan, and when she says, “I have been thinking about reinstating your internship with Stark Industries. Make it official. Paid, of course,” he hugs her so hard he can hear her spine pop.

“Thank you,” he breathes into her hair, and she hugs him back.

“It’s the least I can do,” she replies, and the tremor in her voice brings tears to his own eyes again.

It doesn’t get easier, after that. Not really. But as he sits in the grass with Morgan and listens to her stories about her dad, about some of the things Tony did during the time Peter was gone, he thinks, _It’s never easy, but it can be good anyway._


End file.
